We Don't Know What We Want From All-Star Games
Fans rejected the NBA's artificial spectacle. Then baseball gave them something more real — and they hated that, too.
Defenders of baseball’s All-Star Game — like me! — took a bit of an L on Tuesday night. That’s because, coming off a legitimately amazing Home Run Derby in Philly on Monday, the Midsummer Classic itself was admittedly a bit of a letdown.
There, the American League completely stifled the National League in a sleepy 4-0 shutout — the first time we saw an All-Star shutout since 2013. Any offensive excitement essentially started and ended in the first inning, when the AL jumped on hometown Phillies starter Cristopher Sánchez for three quick runs, setting the stage for an absolute pitching clinic by the AL… or a total snooze-fest, depending on how you look at it.
AL starter Dylan Cease and a parade of relievers held the NL to just three measly singles all night, as the Senior Circuit failed to advance a single runner past first base. Miguel Vargas’ solo homer in the eighth was the game’s only extra-base hit, and otherwise the bats were painfully quiet in a game dominated by 27 combined strikeouts.
The critical reception has been negative, to say the least. Reddit wondered whether it was the most boring All-Star Game ever; The Athletic called it anticlimax and “a dud” with stars sitting and labor clouds looming over the sport.
It was also basically just a normal baseball game in 2026.
Twenty games this season have ended 4-0, most recently between the Red Sox and Mets on Saturday, and 175 games have been shutouts of any score (including 103 in which the winning team scored four runs or fewer). Drilling down more, 161 games saw 10 or fewer combined hits, 50 featured one or fewer extra-base hits, and 18 had at least 27 combined strikeouts.
That’s not to say the combination of all those things wasn’t somewhat unusual. Here’s a look at the Z-scores (standard deviations above/below average) for the All-Star Game relative to the typical 2026 MLB contest, sorted by the categories that drove its greatest difference from an “ordinary” statistical game (more on what I mean by that later):
